A new discovery in the world of staples

I received some nice presents for Christmas. Mind you, Greg and I don’t go overboard with the gift-giving, as we have so much stuff already. Where we do go overboard is in the food-eating, but that’s another story.

 

One of my favourite presents this year — until extremely recent developments — was a stapler. It’s a Swingline with a rather aerodynamic profile and a nice heft. Greg gave it to me because he thought I might like one of my own. Before I clarified this with him, I thought it was so I would not keep using his.




And it even has a low staple indicator.
 

My new office friend takes regular-sized staples.  This fact was essential, both to my stapling habits and to writing this blog, until only a few moments ago when I made a stunning discovery about my existing stapler. As a result, I have had to change the whole tenor of this blog, as you shall see ...

Yes, I still have my first and (up to now) only stapler. Greg said I must be one of the few people in the world who remembers getting their first stapler.

It is a small Apsco which I bought in the 1960s at the Oxford Book Store located in Wellington Square before Wellington Square was tarted up and renamed Galleria, in the forlorn hope that it would be an upscale shopping mecca. However, Galleria now contains an insurance company, a Rainbow Cinema, a few dollar stores and an annex for the local community college with an extensive food court. But that is beside the point now, as any planned analogy with my old stapler no longer holds true (Writing is a difficult art).

 

My  Apsco reminds me of a cricket - very eager.

 

My little orange stapler, by contrast is still relatively perky. It is in more or less in working order although it doesn’t stay closed. Made by a company called Isabergs Verkstads‏ located in Hestra, Sweden (which I shall have to find on the map), it is a model A 10.  According to the imprint on the finger rest, Apsco in “Toronto Ont. Can.” distributed it here. It could continue to function were it not for the fact that no one makes staples for it anymore. Or so I thought until, after squinting to see where it was made, I came across these stunning words along the staple-holder part: “loads standard staples.”

What a surprise that was! Years ago in the mid-90s when it was getting low on staples, I went back to the Oxford Book store (at its Richmond St. location as the Wellington Square/Galleria incarnation had bitten the dust) to find more. I was told there were none for such a tiny stapler. Both the clerk and I had these wee staplers, and together we bemoaned the apparent lack of the wherewithal to continue their useful existence.

Here the plot thickens – so much so that you might want to go get lunch, watch a re-run of As the World Turns or listen to somebody boring saying something pointless about the fiscal cliff.

Still with me? Then move the clock forward 10 or 12 years and find me at the check-out counter of the Parkhill Home Hardware store (before it also closed). Behold boxes,  each containing 5,000 standard-sized staples at the  unbelievable price of only one dollar. I bought three. 15,000 staples and only one stapler in which to use them … until today. With trembling hands I put those standard staples into my little Apsco. They fitted. I tested them on a sheet of paper. They work!

Suddenly we became a three-stapler family:

Greg's is an Ofrex Anglia II made in Great Britain.

 

I am not going to take the new stapler back, for it promises to staple up to 20 sheets. I don’t want to overtax my little Apsco; I’ll use it for up to five.

What has this episode taught me? The world is full of surprises. One should never jump to conclusions. Nostalgia is a good thing especially if it preserves what only appeared to be a useless little item.

Happy 2013!

Aging faster than I think

Here is an exchange of e-mails from earlier today between me and my old friend John:

> Subject: Many happy returns
> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:51:06 -0500

>
> I thought you might be interested to know that on my Skype wall there appeared a notice that you, Lorna Harris, were born on 12/12/1912
>
> This would have made you 100 years old yesterday. I would have pegged you as younger but maybe it is the years of living in Parkhill that have aged you faster than one would suspect.
>
> Best wishes for another 100.
>
> J
>

 

On 2012-12-13, at 2:49 PM, lorna harris  wrote:

 

After the totally bizarre day I have been having, I'm not surprised to hear that I have aged!!

First was choir concert at the nursing home here in town - to make a long story short it reminded me of that IODE meeting in high school where we couldn't stop laughing after we had, among other things, marched the flag into a closet.

So this morning at the home, between someone sliding unexpectedly to the floor in a spell of some sort, some residents arriving late in wheelchairs and walkers and then getting tangled up, a visitor bringing her dog which also got tangled up, the choir director helping to untangle, other residents pedalling out in their wheelchairs for no particular reason, a sleepy guy snoring, a song we weren't planning on singing being announced (by Greg!), the recreation director thanking us before we had finished, and being requested to sing Silent Night after we had just sung it ... I just couldn't stop laughing.

I was wearing the only Santa hat, so I guess that was in keeping with jollity. As I said to the choir director afterwards, this was one concert where I didn't have to think about remembering to smile. Also, five people were sick or had fallen and weren't able to be in the choir so I had to sing the soprano part - much of it new to me. However, I did hit high D and E thereby proving that even though I am an alto I can try harder and be a soprano; the others were just ever so slightly under the pitch.

Then we had a really suboptimal turkey dinner en masse at one of the seven restaurants in town. If you ever come to Parkhill and we feel hungry, we won't eat there. They had tea which tasted of coffee, there was not enough silverware (I initially had to share my knife)  and the waiter retracted his offer of salad, as they didn’t have any. I won't bore you with the rest.

Shortly after we got home I got a call from someone who obviously knew me but whom I couldn't place at all. I was too embarrassed to admit to this. She was wondering if I'd like to go out for coffee. I put it off until next Friday so I could star 69 her number, then Google map her location and try to figure out who on earth she was so I would recognize her. I think I now know. She is a very nice alto, who lives on what looks like a completely desolate stretch of the Kerwood Rd. If I lived there, I'd be desperate to go to Tim Horton's too, though I am still not exactly sure why with me.

Again, thanks for the b-day greetings and hope you day is making more sense than mine is!!

Cheers,

Lorna (I think)

Demolishing our city hall

I am not happy. Why not?  City council has just voted to have our century-old city hall building torn down. It will join the old high school, the old city hall and the old train station in old-building heaven, I guess.

 

City hall, previously the post office, is slated for demolition.

 

The powers-that-be want a one-storey combination service centre, city hall and library (costing over three million dollars) to be built on vacant land behind the existing building.

 

The butterfly garden is right behind city hall.

 

Apparently, renovating and adding to the structure is not an option, despite one architect’s report to that effect.  Well, goodness, an elevator alone could cost a prohibitive $150,000.  Also, the councillors feel Parkhill could use the area it now occupies for green space once the new building is constructed. That’s a lot of respect for grass, given the fields to the north and west of the proposed site, not to mention Coronation Park, barely a block away.

 

Coronation Park is well used - even by aliens.
 

 

Selling the building is not a possibility either, it seems.

Built in 1908, the structure originally housed the post office. It has been so carelessly  “renovated“ over the years that, unfortunately, aside from a spectacular oak staircase, little of its original interior remains. Many of its contents, including all the wooden wickets through which post office business was conducted were removed when the post office moved down the street to new premises, a squat one-store building where the previous city hall once stood.  

 



The new post office,the  bell from the previous city hall and the Carnegie library are down the street.

 

The latter housed a jail in the basement, council chambers on the first floor and a concert hall on the second. One of Greg’s parishioners remembers Christmas concerts held there in his youth. But all that remains of it now is the bell:

 

 

Oddly, a similar building in neighbouring Ailsa Craig was restored by its "Friends" and is now a popular concert hall. Our mayor, who hails from Ailsa Craig but must still be reeling from the shock of such restoration, was quoted as saying you can get “swamped with old buildings.”

According to another source, he feels the municipal government can manage only one “old building”:  the present Carnegie Library beside the new Post Office. By the way, this library is one of 111 libraries in Ontario , endowed by the Carnegie Foundation circa 1913, most of which still function as originally intended; however, about 15 have been destroyed by fire or were demolished in the “enlightened” 60s and 70s.

See this web-site for more information: http://www.mtc.gov.on.ca/en/libraries/carnegie.shtml

 

I love the steps leading up to the library with their short rise and longish run (there is a ramp around back at the parking lot).

 

Our library lacks an elevator and public washrooms, but apparently these and other renovations can’t be undertaken because the wide swath of land behind it is a right of way for the new Post Office.  Other municipalities have been able to find the answers to similar dilemmas, but apparently not ours.

Also puzzling is the wish of some councillors to incorporate elements of the façade of the soon-to-be-demolished city hall into the planned new structure. That implies a pretty meticulous — and expensive — demolition.   Also, their hope that the new structure will reflect the old buildings still standing across the street kind of begs the question — and I think I am using that phrase correctly — as to why they would go to all the trouble of destroying a building, albeit too vertical in nature, in order to erect its horizontal twin.

The old post office/ city hall building anchors the downtown streetscape,  and although not a masterpiece, nevertheless embodies our past.  It reflects Edwardian civic virtues (which in this neck of the woods were likely still very Victorian). Upright, unsparing, functional and stolid, it is a monument to what hard work, civic duty and sober Sunday worship could achieve and symbolizes an ethos which was, and to an extent still is, prosperous, solid, unyielding — and,  sadly, also acquiescent.

Kind of like the roads around here, caging the flat land under a grid where it is woefully hard to get lost, we seem to be immobilized by a similar lack of vision. Taking the easiest path is great for driving, but not so great for preserving our heritage and its buildings for future inhabitants of Parkhill.



This photo was taken in May 2011.



 

 

 

Do we need another set of Pyrex pie plates?

Remember slide carousels, or steam irons with a plastic reservoir outside the iron, or those plastic “onion-flower” makers, designed so you could deep-fry your own Vidalia onions at home?  They were all on offer at the garage sale this morning at St. James Church, part of the village-wide Canada Day celebrations.

Greg is carrying out an unidentified electronic antique.

 And proving there is a buyer for (almost) anything, someone actually bought the slide projector; apparently a group he’s with has lot of slides and no way to show them. He declined to take the screen, however.

Which plants should he buy - maybe that pink basket in the lower right?

The rule is what doesn’t sell, you haul home again: not a happy prospect, so you tend to price realistically. The baby stroller I bought for $20 five years ago sold for $6. Greg’s bamboo étagère, with as-yet-unbroken glass shelves, a striking object for any room, was eventually bought by someone who intended it for his study.

Oh goodness, customers are  arriving, and not all the tables are out! 

Oddly, unlike the Christmas bazaar, Greg did not open the proceedings with a prayer. When I asked him about this he said, “It’s just not tradition.” Tradition has been left in the dust because there seems to be no official start time, or, there is a start time, but like many other ruless around here (like driving motorized vehicles on the hiking paths, but I digress), it is honoured in its breach.

The sale starts officially at 8:00 — an hour earlier than previous years to accommodate early birds. The 9 on the sign has clearly been written over to make an 8, but when customers arrived at 7:30, as we were setting up, we let them buy things. This custom is a startling departure from what I am used to in larger centres.

The are still lots of boxes to unload!

Also, a local church, whose denomination shall remain nameless, held a preview yesterday afternoon, which was bad enough, but they actually allowed purchases to be made! I am still  surprised more people weren’t as scandalized by this turn of events as I was.

In any event, despite being hampered by such an un-Anglican head start, we were soon off and flying. The brand new rubber boots were snapped up, as was a very old beaten-up soccer ball, a pole lamp with a blue lampshade (you’d recognize it from the 90s), two white pleated lamp shades, wool, sets of floral dishes, a set of four scarcely used non-stick skillets, the prettier mugs, most of the Tupperware and, of course, perennials from someone’s garden (“Oh no, are all the hostas sold? Darn”).

Sometimes you have to be ingenious to insure a sale: I have brought a small pink wicker basket almost every year we have been in the parish. It had come home unsold annually until this year when I decided to fill it with herbs and sell it for $2. I think the dirt alone was worth that and yes, someone bought it — for the basil.

Alas we had a lot of unsold pink tablecloths and scatter mats – not as popular a colour these days as in the 80s. It was the same story with peach-coloured dried flower arrangements — likely early 90s in both colour and provenance. However, the card table cloths sold quickly. Our Borat sound track sold, as did Adele’s first CD. A surprising number of books sold — but undoubtedly because of the church ladies’ being present, no one bought the paperback on how to mix drinks like a playboy bunny. They probably wanted to though.

Oh, I want those cookies!

The bake sale was pretty much history by 8:30. Butter tarts and pies, pickled eggs, the equivalent of two roasting pans of nuts and bolts, breads, home-made jams and jellies, and squares so sweet “they’ll make your teeth rattle” flew off the tables to the tune of almost $1,200.

The bake sale - before

The bake sale - after

My canteen sales were helped along by a parishioner who had to bake several dozen cookies for a do at the Eastern Star; she offered to buy four dozen from me and save herself the work of baking them. Done! As the day got hotter, we did a brisk business in bottled water, coffee and very strong tea.

All that remained of my 84 cookies and 50 Rice Krispie squares.

Lots of men came into the bake sale for something to eat while they toured the town, and they bought up the Rice Krispies Squares — not the young kids that I imagined would. My rhubarb custard pies both sold; however, remembering the unhappy tale of recent food poisoning arising from devilled eggs, I warned the gentlemen who bought them not to store them in a hot car since “the custard contains eggs.”

People arrived on foot, in pick-up trucks and cars, of course, and also in golf carts, which are a very popular way of getting around town, especially with a small wagon attached for all the children and purchases that don’t fit in the cart. There were even a couple of dump trucks cruising the streets. 

A perfect day for travel by golf cart

Anyhow, it was a great morning – and all over by 1:00 for another year.

The bake sale ladies - and one gentleman - take a well-deserved rest.

No photo-op should go unsnapped

I must remember to take my camera with me at all times. Yesterday we were in St. Mary’s looking for a place to eat dinner and discovered so many photo opportunities.   From an elegant century-old restored bridge, we watched a pair of swans who drifted down the Thames River and now and then contorting their necks to search out something under their plumage  or pecking affectionately at each other — could have been photo potential. Steps away was the imposing  limestone library — a Carnegie library to boot (Parkhill, take note). The massive town hall anchors that block, and I could have snapped at least part of its impressive façade.  ­ Then there was a restored  castle-like structure a couple of blocks away which looked like a playhouse but which a couple of patrons of the Laundromat across the street  said was the old “opree house.”  Could have snapped their weathered faces too!

Leaving architectural photo ops for other  such mundane shots, behold a calico cat draped sound asleep over a ‘cat hotel’ in the window of a store catering to “Pets and Animals.” We wondered which category the cat fell into.  The dressmaker’s shop next door featured red clothes for Canada Day, and the book store honoured local quilting and, for some reason, an aqua-coloured cruiser bicycle. Close by, a plaque noted Timothy Eaton’s lesser-known brother, whose name escapes me, but who, along with Timothy, opened a dry goods store on the main street. He seems to have stayed behind while his better-known sibling moved on to fame and fortune in Toronto. While the handsome premises are still standing, like Timothy’s grander operation, they alas no longer house the original enterprise.

Anyhow, when I got home and was faced with the task of producing baked goods for the annual, village-wide, July 1 garage sale on Saturday, I decided to digitalize my efforts. Not as memorable subjects as the St. Mary’s photo ops, but just as tasty as the desserts at the Black Angus where we had dinner:

Very sticky - also why do they put the recipe inside the box?

84 chocolate chip cookies and an uncounted number of RK squares

In making the Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Squares, I also learned something about Snap, Crackle and Pop. They have personalities —   something the way the Spice Girls did, but more complicated.  And if you apply Myers-Briggs Typology, you have an even fuller relationship with and understanding of  your morning breakfast cereal, as you eat it  — or them. Snap is likely a ESTJ; Crackle seems to be more of an INFJ; and Pop must be an ESFP. 

Just look at the photo and you decide:

And from now on, I will remember my camera!